Earlier this week, 37signals released their first iPad application. Their app, called Draft, is billed as a “straightforward sketch app for iPad” and is being sold for $10.

Reading on, I can see that:

“It only comes in black. You can draw in white or red.”

And:

“It automatically saves whatever you draw.”

At this point, I was baffled. I’m roughly three full screens down and three screenshots deep and it looks a lot like Adobe Ideas (which is free) and a host of other apps that are already available.

But further down the page, there was more:

“You can share sketches via email or Campfire.”

And there we go. There had to be a reason they were charging $10 for this app, we just had to find it.

Now, the problem I have is with the way they’re marketing it. It’s a “sketch app” but oh it also let’s you “share via Campfire”. And judging from the hundreds of comments on their announcement post, there were a lot of people calling them crazy for charging so much for an app that “doesn’t do anything more than Adobe Ideas”. Yet, it does do more and honestly, what are the chances that the minds behind Basecamp, Rework and SVN, aren’t damn sure of what they’re doing?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I should explain why I’m even writing about this. Over the past few years, I’ve started thinking more about building products than building applications. Not just “can this be done” or “what can be added”, but what makes this a product and how do you sell it. And by sell it, I mean “sell it” for either money or just getting people to buy into the idea. A lot of things have contributed to my thinking more about whole products over the years, and reading what 37signals has had to say is certainly one of those things.

Back to Draft

Let’s first make something clear: the people behind 37signals are incredibly successful and know what they’re doing. They know how to give you what you need and they know how to make you want to take out your credit card. They do a lot of things well, and making money is seriously high on that list.

With that aside, I think they could have launched (and can market) Draft in a much more effective way: by changing the name to “Draft for Campfire”. The only people who are going to buy this app are people who use Campfire. There just simply isn’t any reason to buy this over cheaper sketch apps, unless you use Campfire. And 37signals is clearly directing this at paying, Campfire users. If you had the choice, why would you even want people who won’t spend money on apps, when you have existing customers that probably pay you upwards of $150/year? Existing Campfire users: that’s who it’s useful to and that’s who, I can only assume, they want using it.

So, Instead of taking the criticism, which 37signals does a great job at, by changing the name to “Draft for Campfire”, I think that most people bashing them on that blog post would realize right away the point of the app. It’s no longer a sketch app that also can share via Campfire, it’s a sketch app for sharing via Campfire.

But it’s not just about negative feedback, it’s also about their marketing page. Their current marketing page does an awful job at immediately conveying to me the reason as to why I should buy this app for ten dollars. The fact that it can share via Campfire (mentioned very low on the page), feels a lot different than if the product was billed as for sharing via Campfire right off the bat - even though it’s the exact same app.

It’s a small change, but I’d bet it makes a big difference to a lot of people landing on that page. Then again, I haven’t written two books or launched a host of insanely successful applications, so what the hell do I know?